Real Estate/Environmental

Where the plaintiffs appeal the defendant town planning board’s approval of a site plan to build a college parking lot on a disputed parcel of land, the plaintiffs cannot succeed on a trespass claim since they do not own the land.

Where a plaintiff has brought suit claiming a right to use the defendants’ lakeside beach, judgment must enter in favor of the defendants based on the plaintiff’s inability to establish an express, implied or prescriptive easement on any portion of the defendants’ property.

Where plaintiff condominium owners sued the defendant condominium trust, alleging that the planting of 11 pine trees that obstructed their view violated their property rights and constituted waste as well as a nuisance, summary judgment for the defendant is proper because (1) the plaintiffs do not hold a legally recognized right to the views from their units, (2) the planting of the trees was maintenance, not an improvement, and thus the defendant did not need the prior approval of affected unit owners, (3) the trees did not constitute waste and (4) the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over the nuisance claim.

Where the Brockton planning board has not approved a plaintiff’s application for site plan technical review process, the plaintiff is entitled to technical review and accordingly should be awarded partial summary judgment.

The Dover Amendment is up for Supreme Judicial Court review, and parties affected by that zoning statute — including educational and religious institutions, contractors and developers, and local zoning boards — have been invited to help the court interpret its ...

Where plaintiff seeks, pursuant to G.L. c. 231A, a declaratory judgment that a defendant does not have rights under an easement, a judgment to that effect should be issued, as (1) the easement is appurtenant to the land, not personal to the owner, and (2) the grantor of the easement had sold the land prior to conveying the easement.

Where a plaintiff appealed a zoning board’s grant of variances to the defendants that allowed them to increase their number of parking spaces that abut the plaintiff’s property, the plaintiff is not a “person aggrieved” under G.L.c. 40A §17 and thus has no standing and summary judgment for the defendants is proper.

Where a defendant challenges a petition to partition by claiming a deed is invalid, the deed must be deemed valid because (1) no evidence exists to indicate that the petitioner made any misrepresentation to the defendant relative to the execution of the deed and (2) the defendant was aware that she had signed the deed.

Where plaintiffs have challenged the Gloucester zoning board’s grant of a special permit and a variance allowing the reconstruction of a pre-existing nonconforming structure, the challenge must be rejected pursuant to G.L.c. 40A, §6.